Ranking Factors

Ranking factors are the things a search engine weighs when it decides which page to show first. Nobody outside Google has the complete list, and the list keeps changing. Still, years of testing and public statements agree on the handful that actually move a page.

The first is match. Your page has to answer the search that was typed, in the shape the searcher wanted. Someone typing 'dentist near me' wants a map, an address and opening hours. Someone typing 'how long does a filling last' wants a short paragraph. Give the wrong shape and nothing else you do will save the page.

The second is whether people stay. Google can see, across many searches, when a person opens your page and stops looking, and when they come straight back and click the next result. A page that ends the search is a good page. That is why the honest answer belongs near the top, not after four paragraphs of warm-up.

The third is links from other sites. A link is a recommendation, and where it comes from matters far more than how many you have. One link from a supplier, a trade association or a local paper is worth more than fifty from directories nobody reads.

Then come speed and safety. A page that takes six seconds on a phone loses people before they read a word, so how a site is built decides part of its ranking. The padlock matters too. A site without it is labelled not secure in the browser, and visitors leave. Linkysoft treats page speed as part of website design and development, and the certificate and the login checks as part of cybersecurity.

Two popular ideas are wrong. Keyword density, the idea that a phrase must appear a fixed number of times, stopped working more than a decade ago, and repeating a phrase now makes the page read badly and do worse. The other is the authority score sold by SEO tools. Those scores are invented by the tool companies, not by Google, and buying links to raise one is the exact behaviour that gets a site punished. Linkysoft reports on searches, clicks and enquiries in a digital marketing plan, because those are the numbers a business can spend.